SIX MILE — Six Mile Mayor John Wade, a former school board member, feels that current board members need to take another look at plans to build a new Daniel High School.

Current plans call for the new school to be built on the current school’s site, with the football stadium and some other athletic facilities located on property across S.C. 133.

Once the new school is built, the old Daniel High School will be torn down.

But Wade says that building the new school and holding classes on the same site will be detrimental to students’ education.

“There isn’t any way you can build that school and still have classes in the existing school without some very serious disruption of academics,” he said. “That’s going to be a nightmare, trying to hold classes while that building is being built behind there.

“You’re talking 18 months (of construction)” Wade said. “You’re talking about two academic years with all the noise, the water shutoffs, the power breakdowns, the mud and the dust.”

At previous planning meetings, architects in charge of designing the new high schools have said every effort will be taken to see that construction does not adversely affect the classroom.

Wade advocates building the new school on the land where the district places to locate Daniel’s football stadium.

“Leaving the football field right where it is, leaving the existing school right where it is, and moving the new school toward Maw’s Grocery,” he said.

District officials should meet with the county about the possibility of moving the fire station, Wade said.

“Move it closer to the church, right at the end of the property the school (district) bought,” he said. “That can be done. The county and the district could move that fire station and utilize that space as part of the school.”

Another option the district should explore with the Department of Transportation is moving S.C. 133 around the high school, bringing it out to where the baseball field is currently located or closing the highway off completely and funneling the highway down Old Six Mile Highway, Wade said.

Waiting a year on the project would allow the districts’ funding to generate enough interest to pay for any S.C. 133 work.

Last month planning commissioners expressed concerns to district officials about students and sports fans having to cross the highway to access the stadium and other athletic facilities.

Architects said they chose to locate football facilities across the street, as opposed to spring sports facilities, to limit the amount of times students would cross the highway on an average school day.

Moving the school to the new property would allow the district to get more value out of the property.

“That’s a pretty expensive piece of land just to put a football stadium on,” he said.

That option would also eliminate the need for fans and students to walk across the street for football games, Wade said.

“The (planned) football stadium is going to be too far from the parking lot,” Wade said, adding that neither the home side nor the visitors’ side has enough parking spaces.

Plans to use grass practice fields for extra parking will work — but only in good weather.

“If you have two or three thunderstorms, then you’ve torn it all up,” Wade said. “You’ve got the grounds in a very bad situation if you have heavy rain during a ball game.”

Another option would see the district negotiate with Clemson University about trading property for Daniel High School, he said.

“I don’t think Clemson has told the school district ‘No, no, absolutely no,’” Wade said, referring to earlier attempts to purchase property from the university. “I know they’re not going to trade Daniel High School a million dollar piece of land for a $250,000 piece of land.”

Architects told planning commissioners that efforts to secure land from Clemson early in the building process had been unsuccessful, forcing the district to buy up property across S.C. 133.

Wade suggested that the district offer Clemson the R.C. Edwards Middle School building and property.

“If they were to get Daniel built on a completely separate site, they could move Edwards to Daniel,” Wade said. “Then they could trade Edwards back to Clemson. Edwards came from Clemson to start with. (Clemson President R.C. Edwards) saw that there was land available to purchase, when the district was looking for land.

“It looks to me that Clemson would be interested in taking that land back, with that building,” he said. “They could put their whole education department there. I don’t see why (Clemson and the district) can’t work to together to get 70-80 acres of land that would benefit everybody.”

Wade agreed with architects that the current site is not big enough to house the new school, all athletic facilities and construction equipment at the same time.